Besides the global economic imbalances it created, the covid-19 pandemic also disrupted the global education system considerably.
However, to trump this disturbance created in the education system by the pandemic, Africa is eyeing a makeover of her education policy to ensure that children do not have to lose time, structure or quality curriculum in their education, should the pandemic linger for the foreseeable future or should a similar incidence occur.
In so doing, Africa’s major governments are introducing innovative ideas and contributing incessantly to their educational sectors.
Educational Innovation Is Now a Global Priority
The global pandemic has made innovation in every sector, including the educational sector, crucial. Africa is gradually following suit with the many developed countries who have moved their classes online. However, her adoption of the concept is riddled with much more lags compared to her peers, due to the prevalent lack of infrastructure in most of her countries and the poverty of her masses.
As a note of encouragement, Africa might continue to struggle enormously in her education system due to a lack of resources and support, but African youth are beaming with innovative tech ideas and have therefore made her the current mother of innovation globally. This tells a story of vast possibilities for transformation, in Africa’s educational sector and beyond.
The Innovations Africa are looking to implement include:
“Leapfrogging” In The Educational System
“Leapfrogging” aims to help marginalized areas and populations to access education by providing interactive learning content and improved administrative capacities.
More and more data and data-driven tools are emerging in Africa as a central feature of this digital response. Developers of the ‘leapfrogging’ technology have promised to introduce a new level of automation that mimics human intelligence. In the meantime, however, many subscribe to “leapfrogging” via jumping straight to mobile phones as a primary educational facility.
Remote Learning
Many countries have also resorted to distance learning as a means to make up for the lost school time. And while it remains uncertain when several schools across the continent will reopen physically, adequate attention must be given to the remote learning via pre-recorded content, so as to allow areas without proper internet infrastructure to access these resources as quickly as their peers.
As schools in many African countries work towards reopening physically, more creativity will be needed to keep and strengthen the educational-innovation benefits gained from the pandemic. In line with that, African governments need to invest in high-quality online education and free or subsidized education to help marginalized areas and populations.
Finally…
It should go without saying, that besides their current emphasis on keeping and strengthening innovation in the educational sector, African governments will also need to formulate educational policies that will effectively and transparently mitigate the educational calendar disruptions of the COVID-19-induced lockdown and enforce COVID-19 safety protocols as physical school resumptions start to grow.
